Hyundai Awards for Excellence in Sustainability and Creative Practice

The Hyundai Awards celebrate projects from across the RCA in any art or design discipline that respond to the sustainability challenges currently facing society as a whole. The Awards recognise the importance of employing different perspectives when tackling global issues.

Applications are accepted from all graduating RCA students, and winners are selected in three categories: inspiration, innovation, and aesthetics & craft.

Shotlisted candidates are then invited to an interview panel. Winners are selected by a panel of experts including Peter Schreyer, Executive Design Advisor, Hyundai Motor Group and representatives from the Hyundai brands, and Professor Dale Harrow, Chair of Intelligent Mobility Design Centreat the RCA.

The winners are announced at a ceremony at the RCA's Battersea campus.

A wood table covered with a group of objects, including two iPads and a large screen showing an image of a man standing in front of a deforested rainforest

The shortlisted projects on display at the Hyundai Awards exhibition in 2024. Photo: Chris Lee.

Three men and one woman standing in front of a brick wall smiling.

2024 winner Kahee Jeong with Professor Dale Harrow, Peter Schreyer and Manuel Schöttle

Four men and one woman standing in front of a brick wall smiling

2024 winners Yohaan Kukreja and Ankita Khaana with Professor Dale Harrow, Peter Schreyer and Manuel Schöttle

Past winners

2024 Winners

Inspiration Award: Paul Baule (MA Digital Direction) for WOOD YOU

WOOD YOU is an immersive installation that combines historic satellite imagery of deforestation in the Amazon with 3D animation and acoustic interaction. Depending on the acoustic intensity of an audio trigger, each of these nine video-playheads will jump back and forth in time, showing the year-by-year change of selected deforestation sites between 1985 and 2020.

Each piece displays largely intact forest areas when the audience is quiet and reveals varying patterns of cleared farmland as ambient noise increases. It is up to each visitor to decide how to interact with the work, how to relate to the displayed forest/deforestation, and consequently, how the forest/deforestation responds to their presence.

Innovation Award - Ankita Khanna (MA Design Products) and Yohaan Kukreja (MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering) for the project RAW Materials (Renewable Agricultural Waste)

RAW Materials (Renewable Agricultural Waste) is a rice straw-derived, biodegradable composite and sheet material for the fashion industry. It responds to the problem of rice straw burning, a practice that takes place in Punjab, India, and leads to the burning of 21 million tons of rice straw annually. This creates severe air pollution, with the air quality index (AQI) often exceeding 400 in the country, and results in significant health issues, economic losses, and soil degradation.

This project aims to reduce rice straw burning by up to 30% in the next five years, as well as offering a sustainable alternative to synthetic materials in footwear production. It transforms agricultural waste into valuable products that can be mass-produced and easily integrated into existing manufacturing processes. The approach goes beyond creating eco-friendly materials by reshaping the supply chain to prioritise sustainability.

Aesthetics and Craft Award: Kahee Jeong (MA Painting) for Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

This project was born from the lockdown necessity of painting at home, rather than in a studio. Before the pandemic, Kahee Jeong primarily used oil paints and solvents that could be harmful to the environment. Being forced to paint only at home without a suitable disposal system prompted Kahee to change painting materials to non-toxic mediums, including self-made dyes from food waste and natural sources that would not be harmful to humans or the environment when disposed of.

This project uses the natural, handmade paints in interactive and smudged images on raw canvas and reused objects. This practice reflects Jeong's dual background as an artist and pharmacist, striving for sustainability through eco-friendly artwork and minimising environmental impact in the creative process.

2023 Winners

Inspiration Award: Ella Nartey (Interior Design MA, 2023) for WASTE NOT

WASTE NOT aims to re-evaluate our view on waste and our reliance on traditional raw materials within the design industry. By designing a zero-waste restaurant, sustainable brand and developing a number of biomaterials using food waste and by-products, Ella aims to promote sustainable material innovation and circular design within the built environment, whilst celebrating waste as a resource.

Innovation Award: Qing Duan (Interior Design MA, 2023) for Future Farm

In Qing’s vision of the future farm, hydroponic systems, LED lighting, rainwater storage, energy diversion, and solar panels work together to create a recycling system of permaculture.

Aesthetics and Craft Award: Eileen White (Print MA, 2023) for Symbiosis

Eileen White asks what the role of the artist in the age of the Anthropocene is. Working in the field of photography, Eileen has developed reciprocal ways of working that are slow and mindful. Transforming homemade, grown, recycled or waste materials into alternative, non-toxic, darkroom chemicals or printing substrates enables Eileen to use a low tech, sustainable, cost-effective and safe approach to art making; something which has become a form of environmental activism.